“Vardaman. You, Vardaman.”
He comes out of the stall. “You durn little sneak! You durn little sneak!”
He does not resist; the last of rushing darkness flees whistling away. “What? I ain’t done nothing.”
“You durn little sneak!” My hands shake him, hard. Maybe I couldn’t stop them. I didn’t know they could shake so hard. They shake both of us, shaking.
“I never done it,” he says. “I never touched them.”
My hands stop shaking him, but I still hold him. “What are you doing here? Why didn’t you answer when I called you?”
“I ain’t doing nothing.”
“You go on to the house and get your supper.”
He draws back. I hold him. “You quit now. You leave me be.”
“What were you doing down here? You didn’t come down here to sneak after me?”
“I never. I never. You quit, now. I didn’t even know you was down here. You leave me be.”
I hold him, leaning down to see his face, feel it with my eyes. He is about to cry. “Go on, now. I done put supper on and I’ll be there soon as I milk. You better go on before he eats everything up. I hope that team runs clean back to Jefferson.”
“He kilt her,” he says. He begins to cry.
“Hush.”
“She never hurt him and he come and kilt her.”
“Hush.” He struggles. I hold him. “Hush.”
“He kilt her.” The cow comes up behind us, moaning. I shake him again.
“You stop it, now. Right this minute. You’re fixing to make yourself sick and then you can’t go to town. You go on to the house and eat your supper.”
“I don’t want no supper. I don’t want to go to town.”
“We’ll leave you here, then. Lessen you behave, we will leave you. Go on, now, before that old green-eating tub of guts eats everything up from you.” He goes on, disappearing slowly into the hill. The crest, the trees, the roof of the house stand against the sky. The cow nuzzles at me, moaning. “You’ll just have to wait. What you got in you ain’t nothing to what I got in me, even if you are a woman too.” She follows me, moaning. Then the dead, hot, pale air breathes on my face again. He could fix it all right, if he just would. And he don’t even know it. He could do everything for me if he just knowed it. The cow breathes upon my hips and back, her breath warm, sweet, stertorous, moaning. The sky lies flat down the slope, upon the secret clumps. Beyond the hill sheet-lightning stains upward and fades. The dead air shapes the dead earth in the dead darkness, further away than seeing shapes the dead earth. It lies dead and warm upon me, touching me naked through my clothes. I said You don’t know what worry is. I don’t know what it is. I don’t know whether I am worrying or not. Whether I can or not. I don’t know whether I can cry or not. I don’t know whether I have tried to or not. I feel like a wet seed wild in the hot blind earth.
VARDAMAN
WHEN they get it finished they are going to put her in it and then for a long time I couldn’t say it. I saw the dark stand up and go whirling away and I said “Are you going to nail her up in it, Cash? Cash? Cash?” I got shut up in the crib the new door it was too heavy for me it went shut I couldn’t breathe because the rat was breathing up all the air. I said “Are you going to nail it shut, Cash? Nail it? Nail it?”
Pa walks around. His shadow walks around, over Cash going up and down above the saw, at the bleeding plank.
Dewey Dell said we will get some bananas. The train is behind the glass, red on the track. When it runs the track shines on and off. Pa said flour and sugar and coffee costs so much. Because I am a country boy because boys in town. Bicycles. Why do flour and sugar and coffee cost so much when he is a country boy. “Wouldn’t you ruther have some bananas instead?” Bananas are gone, eaten. Gone. When it runs on the track shines again. “Why ain’t I a town boy, pa?” I said God made me. I did not said to God to made me in the country. If He can make the train, why can’t He make them all in the town because flour and sugar and coffee. “Wouldn’t you ruther have bananas?”
He walks around. His shadow walks around.
It was not her. I was there, looking. I saw. I thought it was her, but it was not. It was not my mother. She went away when the other one laid down in her bed and drew the quilt up. She went away. “Did she go as far as town?” “She went farther than town.” “Did all those rabbits and possums go farther than town?” God made the rabbits and possums. He made the train. Why must He make a different place for them to go if she is just like the rabbit.
Pa walks around. His shadow does. The saw sounds like it is asleep.
And so if Cash nails the box up, she is not a rabbit. And so if she is not a rabbit I couldn’t breathe in the crib and Cash is going to nail it up. And so if she lets him it is not her. I know. I was there. I saw when it did not be her. I saw. They think it is and Cash is going to nail it up.
It was not her because it was laying right yonder in the dirt. And now it’s all chopped up. I chopped it up. It’s laying in the kitchen in the bleeding pan, waiting to be cooked and et. Then it wasn’t and she was, and now it is and she wasn’t. And to-morrow it will be cooked and et and she will be him and pa and Cash and Dewey Dell and there won’t be anything in the box and so she can breathe. It was laying right yonder on the ground. I can get Vernon. He was there and he seen it, and with both of us it will be and then it will not be.
TULL
IT was nigh to midnight and it had set in to rain when he woke us. It had been a misdoubtful night, with the storm making; a night when a fellow looks for most anything to happen before he can get the stock fed and himself to the house an supper et and in bed with the rain starting, and when Peabody’s team come up, lathered, with the broke harness dragging and the neck-yoke betwixt the off critter’s legs, Cora says “It’s Addie Bundren. She’s gone at last.”
“Peabody mought have been to ere a one of a dozen houses hereabouts,” I says. “Besides, how do you know it’s Peabody’s team?”
“Well, ain’t it?” she says. “You hitch up, now.”
“What for?” I says. “If she is gone, we can’t do nothing till morning. And it fixing to storm too.”
“It’s my duty,” she says. “You put the team in.”
But I wouldn’t do it. “It stands to reason they’d send for us if they needed us. You don’t even know she’s gone yet.”
“Why, don’t you know that’s Peabody’s team? Do you claim it ain’t? Well, then.” But I wouldn’t go. When folks wants a fellow, it’s best to wait till they sends for him, I’ve found. “It’s my Christian duty,” Cora says. “Will you stand between me and my Christian duty?”
“You can stay there all day to-morrow, if you want,” I says.
So when Cora waked me it had set in to rain. Even while I was going to the door with the lamp and it shining on the glass so he could see I am coming, it kept on knocking. Not loud, but steady, like he might have gone to sleep thumping, but I never noticed how low down on the door the knocking was till I opened it and never seen nothing. I held the lamp up, with the rain sparkling across it and Cora back in the hall saying “Who is it, Vernon?” but I couldn’t see nobody a-tall at first until I looked down and around the door, lowering the lamp.
He looked like a drowned puppy, in them overalls, without no hat, splashed up to his knees where he had walked them four miles in the mud. “Well, I’ll be durned,” I says.
“Who is it, Vernon?” Cora says.
He looked at me, his eyes round and black in the middle like when you throw a light in a owl’s face. “You mind that ere fish,” he says.
“Come in the house,” I says. “What is it? Is your maw——”
“Vernon,” Cora says.
He stood kind of around behind
